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Archie Satterfield - The Eddie Bauer Guide to Cross-Country Skiing

Foreward

From 1913 to 1920, when Eddie Bauer worked at Piper & Taft in Seattle, snow sport inventory and annual sales were practically nil. One dozen pairs of two-groove ash skies made by Strand or Lund, and perhaps several dozen pairs of snowshoes, were about the extent of the business. Bauer was introduced to recreational skiing in the winter of 1920-21, when he attended a Mountaineers winter outing at Paradise on Mt Rainier. One of the members brought along a pair of two-groove cross-country skis, and everyone in the group took turns trying them out.

Bauer had some previous experience with skis through his friendship with trappers from the eastern Cascade Mountains to the Rockies, who worked traplines of up to 100 miles using homemade skis, waxes and harnesses. Bauer describes their construction of birch skis and preparation of waxes.

Bauer's first stores were too small to sell ski products. When he opened his third store in 1928, he stocked high-quality Norwegian, German and Swiss imported skis. In 1933, when he opened his fourth store, Seattle's largest, he went all-out to promote skiing, employing experts from Norway, such as Roy Nerland, Olav Ulland, and others. Ome Daiber, Scott Osborne and Hans Grage all worked with Eddie Bauer at various times.

Chapter 2 - History

Discusses the origins of snowshoeing and skiing, with little noteworthy information. According to the author, the word "ski" came from Northern Europe and originally described a splinter cut from a log. It also became the Scandinavian term for "shoe," which was pronounced "shee." The first military competition held on skis was in Norway in 1767. During the three-month winter war between Russia and Finland during 1939-40, it took the Russians 105 days and 1-1/2 million troops (only 500,000 of whom survived) to defeat the Finns, who were outnumbered 42 to 1 and had no tanks, half-tracks, or heavy artillery.

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